Social Origins and Primal Law

On my system, as has been already stated, the origin of exogamy may have been sexual jealousy, in small primitive groups, perhaps aided by 'sexual tabu,' with the strange superstitions on which it is based, and these causes would be strengthened enormously by the totem superstition, later. The totem name would now be the exogamous limit. The 'phratries' might result, quite naturally, and even gradually, now in one region, now in another, from the interlocking and alliance, with connubium, of two large friendly local totem groups, an arrangement of which the advantages are so obvious that it might spread by way of imitation and accretion.

This view of the possible origin of what is usually called the 'bisection' of 'the undivided commune' had already been suggested by the late Mr. Daniel McLennan.[100 - Studies in Ancient History, second series, p. 605.] Writing before our information was so full as it now is, he says, as to the two 'phratries' Kumite and Kroki (answering to Matthurie and Kirarawa), 'were it worth while to make surmises, it would not be unreasonable to surmise that at Mount Gambier two separate local tribes[101 - Local totem groups, in my theory.] containing different totem kindreds had, through the operation of exogamy and female kinship, become welded into one community.' Mr. Daniel McLennan, unluckily, inherited his brother's feud against Mr. Fison, and he opposed all that gentleman's doings. Later research has corroborated many of Mr. Fison's facts, and extended the range of their influence. On this point, however – namely, that the 'phratries' are not the result of a bisection, but of an amalgamation – Mr. Daniel McLennan appears to have had a good case. He illustrates his theory, and mine, by remarks on a tradition of the tribes of Northern Victoria.[102 - Brough Smyth, Aborigines of Victoria, i. 423-424.]

The exogamous 'phratries' of these tribes are Eagle-Hawk and Crow. The tradition represents these birds as hostile creative powers. They made peace on the terms 'that the Murray blacks should be divided into two classes' ('phratries'), 'the Makquarra, or Eagle-Hawk, and the Kilparra, or Crow… Out of the enmities' (of the original Crow and Eagle-Hawk) 'arose the two classes, and thence a law governing marriage among these classes.' This tradition, it will be observed, espouses the theory of a bisection, deliberately made of 'the Murray blacks,' into two intermarrying and exogamous classes. Mr. McLennan writes, 'But what the tradition suggests is, not that the Crow and Eagle agreed to divide one tribe into two, with a view to the better regulation of marriage, but that Crow and Eagle or Eagle-Hawk were tribes (and they might have been constituted in the ordinary Australian way) which long waged war against each other, and that at length there came peace, and then their complete interfusion by means of friendly marriages.' The tradition asserts the reverse; it adopts, or rather it forestalls, the scientific theory of a 'bisection' of the Murray blacks, not the amalgamation of two tribes (or large local totem groups). But I agree with Mr. McLennan in prefering, for the reasons given, the theory of an amalgamation. It is rather curious and interesting to observe that almost every scientific hypothesis about totems and 'classes,' which I am obliged to reject, has, in fact, been forestalled by the theories which the natives themselves express in their explanatory myths. Myths, I fear, are never in the right. 'The aborigines themselves,' says Mr. Howitt, 'recognise the former existence of the undivided commune in their legends, but,' he judiciously adds, 'I do not rely upon this as having the force of evidence.'[103 - On the Organisation of Australian Tribes, p. 186.]

We shall presently see that other distinguished anthropologists do, to some extent, rely on Arunta myths, as 'bearing the stamp of authenticity.' The truth is that the native thinkers have hit on the same hypothesis as their European critics, the hypothesis of something like deliberate primeval legislation to a given end, the regulation of marriage. Far from accepting any such native myths, I am rather inclined to hold that, whatever theory be correct, the theory of the savage myth-makers must be wrong. It ought to be said that Mr. Fison, at least, knows what his own theory involves, and once even frankly accepted the possibility that the Dieri myth (the foundation of exogamy by divine decree) may be historically true. 'All I contend for is,' he says, 'that if the former existence of the undivided commune be taken for granted' (and Mr. Fison, unlike Mr. Howitt, regards the undivided commune as a mere unproved hypothesis), 'its division into exogamous clans must have had precisely the effect' (a consciously reformatory effect) 'which Mr. Morgan's theory requires. If such a community ever existed, I do not hesitate to say that Mr. Morgan's "reformatory movement" appears to me the most likely method by which it would begin its advance to a better system of marriage' than 'communal marriage.'

But what gave the impulse to the hypothetical moral reformation? Contact with a more advanced tribe is reckoned improbable by Mr. Fison (for how came the other tribe to be more advanced?), and so the moral impulse 'must have been derived from a higher power,' from the Good Spirit, or from ancestral spirits, as in the myths of the Dieri, the Woeworung, also of the Menomini Redmen of North America, a branch of the Algonquins; and the Euahlayi tribe.

According to the Menomini, there is, or was, a Being who 'made the earth.'[104 - I know that many students will decline to admit that there is such a myth of a Maker.] His name being interpreted means 'The Great Unknown,' but only extreme believers in the theory of religious borrowing will say that he was Sir Walter Scott, Bart. He (The Great Unknown) created 'manidos or spirits,' in the shape of animals, or birds. The chief birds (as often in Australia) were Eagles and Hawks. The Bear 'came out of the ground,' and was turned into an Indian, by the Great Unknown, alias 'The Good Mystery.' He and the Beaver headed totem kins now in 'The Big Thunder phratry.' Other animals came in; there are now Bear, Eagle, Crane, and Moose 'phratries,' each containing a number of totems. All the people of a totem name in the Menomini tribe are akin to persons of the same totem in other tribes, say of the Sioux.[105 - Report of Bureau of Ethnology, 1892-1893, pt. i. pp. 32-43.]

These myths favourably illustrate the piety of the Dieri, Woeworung, Euahlayi men, and Menomini. Like Mr. Fison (at one time, and 'under all reserves') these tribes leaned to the hypothesis of divine or supernormal intervention in matters totemic. The Dieri may be right, but a less difficult hypothesis is that there was never 'an undivided commune,' in the sense of Mr. Morgan and Mr. Fison, and that, consequently, it never was 'divided into exogamous clans.' If so, no miracle is needed: Nec Deus intersit nisi dignus vindice nodus. My own scheme needs no divine aid, nor deliberate legislation, 'in the beginning.' But that such legislation has intervened later, I think probable, or certain.

Messrs. Spencer and Gillen write: 'Rigidly conservative as the native is, it is yet possible for changes to be introduced… There are certain men who are respected for their ability, and, after watching large numbers of the tribe, at a time when they were assembled together for months to perform certain of their most sacred ceremonies, we have come to the conclusion that, at a time such as this, when the older and more powerful men from various groups are met together, and when day by day, and night by night around their camp fires, they discuss matters of tribal interest, it is quite possible for changes of custom to be introduced.'[106 - Natives of Central Australia, pp. 12-15.] The Arunta traditions allege that such changes introduced by men of weight, and accepted after discussion, have been not unusual.[107 - Ibid. pp. 15, 421-422, also p. 272.] This is highly probable, now, but not in the beginning.

The Arunta historical traditions are of little value as to historical facts,[108 - Here I dissent from Mr. Frazer and Messrs. Spencer and Gillen; the point is discussed later.] but the consciousness of the Central Australian tribes accepts the possibility that new customs may now be proposed, debated, and adopted. If no such thing ever occurred, the belief in its possibility could scarcely have arisen among the Arunta. But the possibility has its limits, and one of these is the deliberate primeval introduction of exogamy, for no conceivable reason, and its imposition on a society already totemic but not yet exogamous. Perhaps few critics will frankly say that exogamy was thus imposed; they will try to qualify or evade so improbable and antiquated a theory. Yet they cannot but slip back into it, while they believe in 'segmentations' of 'an undivided commune,' and of later totemic 'subdivisions' of the 'segmentations.'

In any case these Arunta and cognate tribes of similar usages, so recently discovered, so anomalous, so odd, are 'the only begetters' of the latest hypotheses of Mr. Frazer and Mr. Spencer – namely, that totems, originally, were co-operative industrial groups with no influence on marriage rules. Do the Arunta, then, present a surviving model of primitive Totemism, in other regions modified and contaminated; or is their Totemism not, like their metaphysics and psychology, a 'freak,' an unique divergence from the normal development, as I have from the first maintained?[109 - Fortnightly Review, June 1889.] All these difficulties and confusions, as to 'phratries' and totems, inevitably arise from the doctrine that the original totem groups were not at first exogamous, and only became exogamous when separate sets of them were scheduled under the two more recent exogamous primary divisions, or were segmented out of them. In that case it is not easy to see how we can escape from the impossible theory that exogamy, and the primary divisions, were the result, of direct legislative enactment. Even if we could believe this, we see no conceivable motive, except Mr. Fison's divine intervention, an idea which, it appears, he put forward quite provisionally in an argument with Lord Avebury.[110 - In 1895, J. A. I. xxiv., no. 4, p. 371, Mr. Fison abandons hope of a certain discovery of the origin of exogamy.]

THE ARUNTA

The case of these Central Australian tribes, in regard to Totemism and marriage prohibitions, is so peculiar that it demands particular notice. Mr. Frazer some years ago propounded the hypothesis that the Arunta tribe, especially, are the most 'primitive' of living peoples, are still in 'the chrysalis stage' of humanity, whence it would follow that their singular kind of Totemism, and of marriage rules, is nearest to the beginning, and best represents the original type.[111 - Fortnightly Review, April, May, 1899.] The Arunta, dwelling in the arid regions of the centre, have certainly been little contaminated by European influences. They are naked, houseless, non-agricultural nomads, like all the Australian tribes, and it is asserted by Messrs. Spencer and Gillen and others that they have not yet discovered the rather obvious facts as to the reproduction of the species. All this has certainly a primitive air. But I have ventured to reply that the Arunta, as regards the family, are confessedly more advanced towards individual marriage than their neighbours, the Urabunna, with whom they freely intermarry.[112 - Spencer and Gillen, pp. 68, 69, 121.] Unlike what is told of the Urabunna, the Arunta recognise 'individual marriage.' They deliberately and ingeniously modify their system on the occasion of intermarriage with the Urabunna. These reckon descent in the female, the Arunta in the male line.[113 - Ibid. p. 70.] The office of Alatunja, or head man of a local group, among the Arunta, is hereditary in the male line, descending to a brother of the late Alatunja, if he leaves no adult son.[114 - Ibid. p. 10.]

Moreover, the Arunta, and cognate tribes, occupy an area of 750 miles, and their meetings and discussions last for months. A people truly primitive cannot be conceived as capable of such immense local associations, and of such prolonged and pacific assemblies. Again, Messrs. Spencer and Gillen, rightly or wrongly, believe that 'communal marriage' is the earlier institution, and that it persists, 'slightly modified' among the Urabunna, but not among the Arunta. Thus, beyond all doubt, the Arunta are more developed, more advanced, than the Urabunna, and it is hardly safe to say that, where their organisation differs from that of the Urabunna, and other tribes in general, it differs because it is more 'primitive.' It must be less primitive, a special divergence from the type.

ARUNTA METAPHYSICS

Again, as proof that they are in no chrysalis stage, the Arunta possess a reasoned theory of things, so ingenious and complex, so peculiar, so extraordinary, so carefully atheistic, that one could scarcely believe it possible for naked savages, were it not so well attested. The theory is that of the original evolution of types of life into plants and animals, which, with the minimum of extra-natural aid, became human. The human beings possessed souls, which on the death, or disappearance into earth, of the original owners, were hereditary, being reborn into Arunta children. These souls each of a given totem (the plant or animal or other thing which first became human) haunt certain local centres. One place is the centre of Grub totem souls, another of Cat totem souls, and so forth. Each new child is of the totem of the haunted locality where the mother supposes that she conceived it; a totem soul of that locality has become incarnate in her, and from her is born. Thus the wife may be of one totem, the child of another; the husband may be of the wife's totem, of the child's, or of another. The totem is thus no bar to marriage, and is not inherited, all this being the result of the peculiar philosophic system of the Arunta. Their totemism is thus a 'sport,' and not the original form of the institution.

We cannot reverse the case, the philosophy of hereditary totemic souls cannot be the result of the present mode of inheriting the totem from the group of souls that haunts each locality, it cannot be a myth invented to explain that custom. That custom requires the peculiar Arunta soul-belief as its basis, and cannot exist without the belief. If the child received its totem name from the place where it is born, we might say, 'Originally the child was called after the place of its birth.' (Arunta children still receive territorial personal names from the place of their birth.) 'Later, Totemism came in with totem local names, each place having a totem title. The local totem name of the place where a child was born was then given to each child. Still later, arose a myth that totem souls haunted each place, and that the child received its totem name because a local totem soul was incarnated in it, at the place where it was born.' We cannot maintain this theory – which makes the present Arunta belief a myth to explain the present Arunta custom – because that custom it does not explain. The child receives its totem name, not from the place where it is born, but from the place where the totem soul entered into its mother. Nor can we assume that totem names were originally given, not to human groups, but to districts of territory. Thus the present Arunta mode of obtaining the totem, in each case, is the direct result of the Arunta philosophic belief. That belief is peculiar, is elsewhere unheard of, is the property of a tribe distinctly more advanced in marriage rules, and local solidarity, than some of its neighbours, and therefore cannot be primary. It follows that the Arunta mode of obtaining the totem, not by inheritance, is not 'primitive,' is not the original model from which the rest of savage mankind has diverged. This I state, because, as a rule, a belief exists to explain an institution, and, as a rule, an institution is not the result of a belief.

ARUNTA TOTEM EATING AND TRADITIONS

Each Arunta totem kin may now eat, in moderation, of its own totem, and each kin does magic (Intichiuma) for the benefit of its totem, as part of the food supply of the tribe in general. The traditions represent men and women of the same totem as, of old, usually intermarrying (that is, as endogamous): while they are also said, as a rule, to have fed almost exclusively on their totems, being thus endophagous.

All these usages, real or traditional (except doing magic for the benefit of the totem), are at the opposite pole from the customary exogamous and exophagous Totemism of savage tribes all over the world, and even in Australia. If, therefore, the Arunta and tribes practising the same usages are primitive (it may be, and has been argued), their Totemism is, in origin, the earliest known case of the division of labour; each group selecting and working (by magic) for the benefit of its totem, as part of the tribal food supply. I elsewhere argue that each group must probably have had a recognised connection with its totem, before it set out to do magic for the propagation of the creature.[115 - See 'The Origin of Totemism,' infra.] But I have also maintained that the Arunta are far from being 'primitive,' but are rather a 'sport,' and that their usages represent a local variation from the central stream of Totemism; not Totemism in its earliest known form.

DR. DURKHEIM ON THE ARUNTA

I had written on this topic in the Fortnightly Review (June, 1899), and in another chapter of this book ('The Origin of Totemism'), before I saw the essay of Professor Durkheim, of Bordeaux, Sur le Totémisme.[116 - L'Année Sociologique, 1900-1901, pp. 82-121.] It is encouraging to find that Dr. Durkheim, independently, has worked out the same theory – namely, that the Arunta are not in the primitive stage of Totemism, but represent a very peculiar divergence from the type, and that their historical legends (more or less accepted by Mr. Frazer and Mr. Spencer) are mainly myths, told to account for certain facts in their social arrangements. We are not to reason from their single case, says Dr. Durkheim, as against the great mass of our knowledge of Totemism and totemistic exogamy and exophagy. 'In place of being a perfectly pure example of the totemistic régime, is not Arunta Totemism a later and disfigured (dénaturée) development?' For many reasons, says Dr. Durkheim, 'the Arunta are among the most advanced of the Australian peoples,'[117 - Ibid. v. 89-90.] and he gives his grounds for this opinion, some of which I had already adduced in 1899. Entering into detail, Dr. Durkheim readily shows that, though the Arunta now permit marriage between persons of the same totem (which is not hereditary on either side, but casual), they are, for all that, exogamous, in a fashion resulting from precise Totemism in their past.

They may not marry within the two primary divisions (which Dr. Durkheim styles 'phratries'). Each phratry contains two (sometimes four) other 'classes' (exogamous), and phratries arose in the combination of 'two elementary exogamous totem groups' – as I have already suggested. Now phratries, we have agreed with Mr. Howitt and Mr. Fison, were, in all probability, themselves originally totemic. Mr. Frazer also says, 'We should infer that the objects from which the Australian phratries take their names were originally totems. But there seems to be direct evidence that both the phratries and subphratries actually retain, in some tribes, their totems.'[118 - Totemism, p. 83.] If the opinion be correct, the phratries of the Arunta, which regulate their marriages, were originally local totem groups. On my system, then, namely, that totem kins were originally, or very early became, exogamous, were exogamous before 'phratries' arose, and before the so-called 'bisection' was made, then the Arunta organisation was originally that of exogamous Totemism. At first, though not now, totems regulated Arunta marriages.

Dr. Durkheim, in the passage cited, says that the two exogamous phratries are composed of 'two elementary totem groups, également exogames.'[119 - L'Année Sociologique, v. 92.] Dr. Durkheim, who here is of my opinion, writes, 'It is not true that, among the Arunta, the totem has always been' (as it is now) 'without influence on marriages, nor, above all, is it true that Totemism, generally, implied endogamy.' Yet, according to Arunta myth, the ancestors of the 'dream-time' (Alcheringa) were endogamous, as a general rule, and, as a general rule, were endophagous, ate their totem animals or plants. The ancestors of their traditions fed on their own totems, 'as if by a functional necessity,' say Messrs. Spencer and Gillen. But this simply cannot be true, for each totem is not in season, (plums, for instance), or accessible, all the year through, and, if it were, it would be exterminated by endophagy. The traditions, again, do not represent the men of the totem groups as really and religiously endogamous. They exercised marital privileges, not only over the women of their totem group, but over any other woman they could come across. Certain totem groups are represented in the legends as wandering across the land, the men living with women of their totem group, while 'there is nothing to show definitely that marital relations were prohibited between individuals of different totems.' The men accepted the caresses of such women of other totems as they encountered; but their habitual mates were the women of their own totem.[120 - Spencer and Gillen, p. 419.] In the alleged state of perpetual trek, the wives were naturally, in the opinion of the myth makers, of the group. At present an Arunta marries in or out of his totem; as he pleases.

THE RELATIONS OF TOTEMS AND 'PHRATRIES' AMONG THE ARUNTA

The relations of the totem groups to the 'primary divisions,' or 'phratries,' among the Arunta and cognate tribes, are, as we have already stated, entirely peculiar. We have seen that, in North America, and in Australia generally, no phratry ever contains the same totems as its linked phratry, and we have seen that Mr. Frazer calls this the natural arrangement.[121 - J. A. I., N.S., i. 285.] If so, the present Arunta arrangement is not natural; it is a divergence from the natural type. Among the Arunta, 'no totem is confined to either moiety' ('phratry') 'of the tribe.' There is only 'in each local centre a great predominance of one moiety.'[122 - Spencer and Gillen, p. 120.]

Dr. Durkheim regards the present state of Arunta affairs (the totems not being peculiar to either phratry) as une dérogation. Originally, he thinks, as among the Urabunna, each phratry contained only totems which were not in the other phratry; and he detects survivals, among the Arunta, of the earlier usage. At present the Arunta totems show 'a slight tendency to skip' (chevaucher) 'from one into the other phratry, doubtless because the Arunta totem system is no longer complete' – and no wonder, as Arunta totems are now not hereditary, but derived from the totem souls haunting each locality. Again, in Arunta legend, the ancestors 'were divided into companies, the members of which bore the same totem name, and belonged as a rule to the same moiety' ('phratry') 'of the tribe,' as now among the Urabunna, 'who are in a less developed state than the Arunta.' So say Messrs. Spencer and Gillen, and thus Arunta legend points to a past in which Arunta usage was, in this matter, as a rule the same as that of the less developed Urabunna: which I believe it really was.

But we can hardly accept the legends when they fit, and reject them when they do not fit, our theory! I lay no stress on the legends.